*Total
cost to employer does not include the cost of fringe benefits (such as employer
contributions to private health insurance plans and pensions) and tax and regulatory
compliance. The tax wedge does not include the host of other taxes--property taxes, sales
taxes, gas taxes, cigarette taxes, etc.--that workers must pay with their remaining
take-home pay.
**West Virginia is one of the seven jurisdictions in which the workers' compensation
system does not allow private insurers to provide workers' compensation insurance.
Instead, employers must pay into a monopolistic state fund. As a result, comparable
estimates of the workers' compensation costs were not available. Therefore, the estimates
for total employer costs and the tax wedge in these states are not directly comparable
because they do not include an estimate for workers' compensation costs (which were, on
average, $1,395). These states were not included in the rankings for those items.